studies. eric: oh, wonderful. arthel: i just love that. eric: our very best to john. arthel: and his family. eric: of course. arthel: thanks for joining us, we will be back in one hour, at four eastern, with more news. erg eric see you then. ♪ ♪ >> by removing sole maney -- soleimani, we have sent a powerful message to terrorists: if you value your own life, you will not threaten the lives of our people. as we continue to evaluate options in response to iranian aggression, the united states will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the iranian regime. paul: welcome to "the journal editorial report," i'm paul gigot. that was president trump wednesday announcing more sanctions against the iranian regime but no new military strikes after more than a dozen iranian missiles hit two bases in iraq housing american troops. the president's remarks signaling an ease in tensions,

at least for now, following the u.s. strike last week that killed iran's top military commander, qassem soleimani. retired four-star general jack keane is a fox news senior strategic analyst. good to see you again, general. >> good to see you, paul. paul: you have said that the events of the last week add up to a strategic victory for the u.s. how so? >> yeah, very significantly. i think it's a big win for the president because by killing soleimani, i mean, he clearly got in khamenei's head here, who's the stream leader of -- supreme leader of iran. they've never had an action against them of that magnitude and that significance that so impacts how they are cutting their foreign -- conducting their foreign policy and their foreign wars and also how they do with their own people. soleimani was very much in charge of putting down the protest movements inside of iran. so what the president accomplished and many of his

detractors had no appreciation for what was really taking place is the supreme leader deescalated. he was fundamentally deterred by the president's actions. i mean, he calculated that i will do something in return for soleimani's death that's largely symbolic, largely playing to my own audience, but i don't want to conduct a massive attack where i'm guaranteed to kill americans. and why didn't he want to do that? paul: yeah, that's the key question, because presumably they have enough targeting expertise to have been able to do more damage had they wanted to. >> yeah. they could have shut down the straits of hormuz, that would have caused some real problems, and they could have targeted the major u.s. ground bases, air bases and navy bases that we have in the region. not in iraq. i mean, we have significantly large scale u.s. bases, and the patriot missiles that are defending those bases, they

could defeat those because the advanced cruise missiles that they used on the saudi oil field, paul, penetrated under the radar of those patriot missiles. paul: so, general, why did they blink? why do you think the iranians blinked? >> they blinked because they knew that president trump is a person of his word, and they're dealing with a very different president than what they've dealt with over 40 years here. and they knew that the retaliation from the united states would be significant. what am i talking about here? they would have taken down oil, all of the eight refineries that the iranians have. they would have taken down largely their entire industrial base. i mean, power plants, etc. and then their strategic deterrence to protect the iranian regime is built around short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles -- paul: and we could have taken them out too. >> we would have taken them out all in one night, and they know that. that would have been the beginning of the end of the

regime. and that was an accurate calculation, i think, on khamenei's part. paul: all right. do you think the president was wise then in the wake of the response from iran that did not kill any americans, was the president wise to restrain his response and to deescalate are along with khamenei? >> yeah. i think it was absolutely one of the president's finest moments as president of the united states. i mean, clearly they were trying to kill americans, could have been killed -- paul: right. >> -- in that insignificant strike. and he had, certainly, he had the authority to take out the launch sites, take refineries out and the rest of it. but he got on the moral high ground and told them i'm going to sanction you for what you've done, but i'm also offering you a diplomatic solution. and that, i think, was absolutely the right call. and i think he also has an opportunity here, you know, to reach out to the europeans, as he stated in his speech, and to nato to further isolate the iranians to help bring them to

the negotiating table. paul: all right. so what -- do you think that the iranian response, the military response, retaliatory response is done, or do you expect to see some acts of terror or strikes via proxies in the future? >> yeah, they -- but they have limited actions. the president has drawn a line. iranians as well as proxies, you're not going to kill americans. if you do, i'm going to retaliate. so that immediately begins eliminating -- now, these proxies, so our audience understands, they're not homogeneous, and some of the commanders have a lot of energy and emotion associated with them, and they may lob some rockets from time to time -- paul: they could act on their own without approval from tehran, perhaps. >> even though iran says knock it off, they'll take some action. but it won't be significant action, in my judgment. they can tell the hezbollah in lebanon and hamas in gaza to attack israel, but israel knows how to deal with that. and the israelis, by the way,

have contained the 80,000 proxies in western and southern syria from establishing missile bases by conducting over 200 airstrikes. we're containing the iranians in eastern syria by not letting them have access to the oil fields. so there are things -- they can interrupt the oil flow again, and they can knock out some oil production. so there are limited actionings. but i think their most significant action, paul, is going to be political. paul: all right. well, i want to ask you about that. we don't have a lot of time, but i want to ask you is there anything, any chance, do you think, that the iranians could come to the table and negotiate over the nuclear deal? >> it's hard for me to see that taking place when they have in their minds the uncertainty of president trump's reelection. paul: right. >> and i think that's a big card for them. so i don't see much movement unless it becomes obvious that president trump is going to be reelected. the political move i think they're going to make is bribe, coerce, intimidate the iraqis to

force the united states out of iraq. and if they're able to achieve that, that'll be a big political victory for the iranian regime, for sure. paul: and that's a good argument for the united states staying there. all right. thank you, general, appreciate it. very helpful. when we come back, foreign policy takes center stage in the 2020 presidential race as the showdown with iran shines a light on the 2020 democrats and their own commander in chief credentials. cologuard: colon cancer screening for people 50

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the soleimani strike and iran's response reverberating across the campaign trail this week as the 2020 democrats criticized president trump's strategy while trying to make their own case to become commander in chief. let's bring in our panel, "wall street journal" columnist and deputy editor dan henninger and columnist kim strassel and bill mcgurn. dan, you look across the whole week, how well do you think president trump handled this? >> well, i think he's handled it really quite well. i mean, let's make no mistake, killing soleimani was an event of incredible magnitude. it was the biggest thing in foreign policy. he's been negotiating with north korea, talking to the chinese. this trumps, shall we say, everything. paul: this is the biggest decision he's made in the presidency so far on foreign policy? >> yeah, i think so. and the response of his critics and the democrats was extraordinary. normally there'd be a 24-hour

grace period for an american president when they do something like this. but bipartisanship reigns for a day. but not this time. it was overwhelming against the president. normally when you attack donald trump, you get attacked back. but in this instance he didn't do that. he eventually made a statement to the american people. it was restrained, he's announced more sanctions on the iranians, and he has not engaged in a tit for tat with his create ings on this -- critics on this. and so it was a presidential act. at the moment he's looking very presidential, and i have to say a lot of the criticism is looking, by the democrats -- even the democratic candidates -- looking uninformed and insubstantial. paul: bill, the democrats clearly want to run against the president as the chaos president, as somebody who really is impulsive, reckless, looks for war. i guess, did this image counter that, in your view? he had a couple of tweets during the week which suggested, you

know, the critics took after, one on attacking cultural sites in iran if they would retaliate. >> well, with donald trump there's always a lot of noise behind hem that comes in, and the democrats seem to obsess over the things that don't really matter too much, right in now they're haggling over the word imminent, you know? this guy was a threat just walking around to americans. i mean, i think the president has, one, really given iran to think about in strategic terms with this strike, and also he just -- the dem -- it's not just the president, but the democrat response which seems to be some of them are blaming america for the ukrainian airliner going down seems to make them want to look weak. we're back to the blame america first. and the big problem that democrats have is trump's really stolen their foreign policy. he came in against the long wars and involvement but saying the flip side is i'm going to be tough. that's what obama tried to do in the beginning with the afghan surge, but he announced the withdrawal the day he announced the surge, and then he never did

it. he's actually doing it. and it's a contrast. remember when those four contractors were killed in iraq on the bridge, and we didn't do anything. and now there's an american life, and he says there's going to be consequences. paul: kim, how do you think this is going to play inside the democratic presidential contest? we had joe biden come out, as we showed, very forcefully criticizing the president and the strategy, and that was in advance of the iranian retaliation and the president's restraint in response to that. how is this going to affect that debate? >> well, that biden statement was an example of how it is already affecting that debate. joe biden missed an opportunity here to himself look presidential. what he could have done is come out and say, yes, this guy wassed bad, yes, the president was right to take him out. i have some questions about his overall strategy in the region because that is still a bit unclear, and it's a fair question. he didn't do that because he's being pushed to the left on foreign policy by the

progressive, ascendant part of the party. and you're seeing that on domestic issues, but now we're having this foreign policy debate. you're seeing it on foreign policy issues too. it's led by bernie sanders, elizabeth warren saying, basically, there is no reason why we would ever engage against a terrorist, very much the kind of peace coalition within the party. but it's also putting pressure on candidates like biden, and i think that that undermines democrats' reputation among voters in terms of foreign policy and security. paul: dan, do you feel, do you think that biden maybe felt he had to position himself this way to inoculate himself against the attacks he knows are coming from bernie and warren about his 2002 vote for the iraq war? >> i think it, that's precisely the reason. and it's not just to inoculate himself against bernie. one of the problems for joe biden -- and i would say amy klobuchar, two moderate candidates running -- is that in all these primaries now since

2016 the rise of bernie sanders, it's not just bernie, it's the fact that you've got younger democrats basically who agree with bernie sanders, socialist, pacifist. and i think biden and klobuchar are having a difficult time gauging how substantial they are, what their presence are in iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, super tuesday. to what extent do they have to mollify them at the risk of, if they don't do that, getting hurt in the primaries. it's a very difficult choice for them, but at some point they've got to show more clarity about where where they stand, i think, for voters generally. paul: bill, briefly, who do you think's going to get the edge here? is this going to help bernie or biden? >> i think because of the way biden handled it and buttigieg, in my opinion, it's going to help bernie. and i think that's a miscalculation on biden's part. i don't think he can win the anti-war vote. i think in the primaries he's looking, he knows he's got south carolina, but he's looking at iowa and new hampshire, but he's not going to win that.

again, all bernie's going to say is, joe, you voted for iraq. and what he should have done is look like a commander in chief. he could still criticize the bush strategy, as you laid out, but say it's a good day when we get a guy that's killing americans. paul: thank you, all. when we come back, democrats on capitol hill nearly unanimous in their criticism of president trump's order to kill qassem soleimani. one of their former colleagues says it deserves more bipartisan support. connecticut senator joe lieberman joins us next. hy ther. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring.

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download the xfinity stream app and watch all the shows you love. ♪ ♪ >> the american people, rightfully, have serious concerns about a war with iran and whether we are safer today because of this president's foreign policy which is so often impulsive and erratic.

paul: democrats on capitol hill nearly united in their criticism of the president and his decision to order the strike that killed qassem soleimani. a move my next guest says deserve ises more bipartisan support. former connecticut senator joe lieberman joins me now. senator, good to see you. >> you too, paul. thank you. paul: so when you say it deserves more bipartisan support, why? >> well, to me, it just seems that the killing of soleimani seems so eminently in the national security interests of the united states. i mean, everybody by now knows the record. you can hold him responsible for the deaths of hundreds of americans directly since, over the last 15 years and thousands of others. all those, including democrats who deservedly are critical of us standing back in sir what and watching more than half -- syria and watching more than half a million people there, can put the blame mostly on soleimani

without whom assad would never still have been there. so this is again a reflection, i'm afraid, of how partisan tribal our politics have become. and this, to me, is an extreme of it. if you can't agree that it's the right thing to do for the united states, to kill, to take off the battlefield a general literally in the war against us, then what can we agree on without partisan politics? paul: well, it's striking to me because this is iran in particular which, as you know going back to the revolution in 1979, has been targeting americans. and many democrats over the years, including chuck schumer and others, have said, look, we have to get tougher against iran. what's behind it? why the change now? is it just donald trump? >> i really think it is. it's donald trump and the increasing partisanship of american politics. you are absolutely right. for years in the face of iranian

aggression against us including all that they did training and equipping iraqi militias which went back into iraq and killed over 600 american soldiers by conclusion of our state department -- paul: official count. >> official count. people like chuck schumer, right across the bipartisan board supported economic sanctions. we didn't want to go to war against iran. economic sanctions against him to squeeze iran so that they would stop doing what they were doing. and why, why did this become a point of, the killing of soleimani become a point of partisan disagreement? i think it's got to be because we're so partisan generally and because we're at a point where whatever donald trump does, president trump does, democrats will oppose it. frankly, whatever donald trump does, most republicans will support. and that's a suspension of rational thinking, particularly

when it comes to our national security. paul: okay. but so you look at the democratic party and the change of opinion over the years, i mean, i don't see many, you know, henry jackson democrats anymore. >> yeah. paul: he was the anti-soviet union democrat for years, worked with president reagan. >> right. paul: and you yourself, you were challenged in a primary and had to run as an independent in order to keep your seat. >> right. a. paul: how do you see the drift in the party on foreign policy? is it really moving in a profoundly dovish direction? >> well, it certainly seems like it is. certainly, among the candidates who are involved in the hothouse of the democratic primary in which the left is disproportionately represented. but i worry about it. this is a tension, a dialogue that's gone on in the party for some years -- paul: right. >> i mean, in a sense it hit the far-left point in 1972 when george mcgovern was elected. first, it was in the middle of

the vietnam war. paul: right. >> president nixon was not that popular, but he won a landslide over mcgovern. the democrats who have won the presidency since then were either center-left and pro-security. remember, jimmy carter, no matter what he did during his presidency, he was a navy veteran. he was a submariner. bill clinton took some strong positions on security. barack obama himself was more of a center, center-leftist when he ran for president. incidentally, i was looking at history, and the congress got very angry at president clinton for going into kosovo without congressional authorization. paul: i remember that. and tom delay, the republicans in the house, tried to stop it. you know what happened? mitch mcconnell and the republicans in the senate -- >> yes. paul: -- and combined with democrats basically said, no, we support the president. >> exactly.

[laughter] to their credit. and congress was also angry at president obama for taking american forces into libya -- paul: right. >> -- without an adequate congressional authorization. in fact, even under the war powers act which presidents of both parties is have said they don't really feel obliged to follow, usually they try to, president obama kept our forces in weeks after the timeline for that expired. [laughter] so you have to say that all this invoking of the war powers resolution today by democrats in congress against president trump for what he just did to soleimani is a classic pattern, partisan pattern -- paul: either side. >> -- on either side, but it's worse than ever today because the partisanship is worse than ever, and there should have been nothing controversial about the killing of soleimani. paul: all right. senator lieberman, thank you for coming in. great to see you. >> thank you, paul. you too. paul: still ahead, the congress passes a war powers resolution

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♪ ♪ >> the administration conducted a provocative, disproportionate airstrike against iran which endangered americans and did so without consulting congress. we are passing today a war powers resolution to limit the president's military actions. the administration must

deescalate and must protect -- prevent further violence. america and the world cannot afford war. paul: house speaker nancy pelosi this week calling last week's strike that killed qassem soleimani provocative and disproportionate. the house voted mostly along party lines wednesday. the nonbinding resolution directs the president to terminate the use of u.s. armed forces unless congress declares war or there is, quote, an imminent armed attack upon the united states. george terwilliger served as deputy attorney general and acting attorney general during the george h.w. bush administration. george, nice to see you again. >> you too, paul. paul: so let's talk about the accusation there that this, the implication by the speaker that this was an illegal action in taking and killing, the targeted killing of soleimani. do you agree? >> no. the notion that it was illegal is absurd.

the president has plenary authority under the constitution as commander in chief to act in defense of the nation. if you look at the example of when president ken canty deployed -- kennedy deployed military forces not to thwart an attack on the united states, but rather to neutralize the capability of the soviets to attack from missiles they had in cuba, we don't have to wait to be attacked in order for the president to act. and here this particular man had a history of attacking and having the potential to further attack the united states. paul: so this point that some people are making, well, the threat has to be imminent for the president to attack, you think that that is just false. >> i do. i mean, i think if there is an imminent attack, that's a factor. but the attack doesn't necessarily have to be imminent for the president to act. it's one of the flaws, frankly, in the war powers act that

senator lieberman referenced in your with earlier segment. in that it, one of the three exceptions to that act, whatever the constitutionality of that act this general, is that the president is acting in response to an attack on the united states. it would be far better if that law said acting in response to an attack or the threat of attack on the united states. paul: what about the executive order on assassinations that goes back to assassinating government officials from other governments? it goes back to the ford administration. some people have suggested that because soleimani was so senior in the iranian government, that that should have put him off limits to such an attack. do you agree or disagree? >> no, i disagree with that because it is inherent in the right of national self-defense to recognize that new forms of warfare require new forms of defense and response.

and there's no question that the iranian revolutionary guards and this man in particular has been at war with the united states and has been for a long time and has employed lethal force and prosecution of that -- in prosecution of that war. so taking him out was not a political assassination, it was a military act. paul: all right. so let's talk about the war powers resolution. the house has now invoked its name at least the, although strangely only in a nonbinding resolution. what do you make of this house action? i mean, i guess it's never going to make it to the president's desk because it's nonbehinding. >> right. it's not a law, it's just a resolution. and, you know, i think, paul, if you want to understand why donald trump is president and what that great swell of american sentiment against washington and in favor of an outsider was, it's exactly the kind of partisanship that senator lieberman described

around a national security issue like this. it makes people sick to see something like this politicized to the degree that it has been. there can be legitimate policy disputes about when and how to use military force. but to have this knee-jerk reaction that because the president did it it must be bad is so obviously partisan that i think people see right through it. paul: what about this issue, though, of congressional authorization? the constitution stipulates the congress has the power to declare war. it hasn't invoked that specific power though since, i think, world war ii. lots of uses of force since then. but is that, in your view, an abdication of congressional authority, and should the congress reassert it more vigorously the way that senate mike lee, for example, of utah, republican, has asserted it should? >> well, abdication is both a big word and a strong term, paul. [laughter] i'm not sure that congress has -- paul: i'm trying to provoke you,

george, that's what i'm trying to do. [laughter] >> i think, frankly, they dodged their war authorization responsibility over the years. but maybe in a way that recognizes the realities of threats to america today is healthy. if you just very quickly look at president reagan sought and obtained authorization from congress to put marines in lebanon. president bush, at the time that iraq invaded kuwait, sought and received -- even though he legally did not need it -- permission to put our forces at work there. president clinton also used certain provisions of the war powers act. so i think presidents and congress, recognizing the realities of how things are today, have found a way to deal with it. but i don't think congress, you know, congress is not going to declare war because they don't want to be politically accountable for doing so. but they're awful quick, it seems now, to pull the trigger

on saying that what the president should not do. he has a responsibility under the constitution which trumps any statute to defend the country. is so i think presidents will continue to act as they see fit and necessary to do so. paul: all right. george terwilliger, thank you very much for that illumination. appreciate it. >> thank you, paul. paul: still ahead, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell gearing up for an impeachment trial in the senate as a former trump administration official says he's willing to testify if subpoenaed. >> house democrats had their say in december. senate republicans are going to have their say real soon. ♪ ♪ whoa, this is awful, try it. oh no, that looks gross what is that? you gotta try it, it's terrible. i don't wanna tray it if it's terrible. it's like mango chutney and burnt hair. no thank you, i have a very sensitive palate.

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♪ ♪ paul: majority leader mitch mcconnell gearing up to begin president trump's trial in the senate as house speaker nancy pelosi says she will send the

articles of impeachment next week. the gop leader saying that he has the 51 votes needed to establish the impeachment rules and delay a decision on calling witnesses until after opening arguments and questions from senators. and telling pelosi that there would be no haggling over the terms of the trial. all this as former national security add add rise -- adviser john bolton says he's ready to testify during the proceedings he's subpoenaed. we're back with dan henninger, kim strassel and bill mcgurn. kim, looks like the speaker of the house has yielded the floor, so to speak, to mitch mcconnell. [laughter] why do you think she finally gave in? >> well, i think it's because mitch mcconnell has been remarkably consistent from the start about this. he has both said that the house was not going to dictate senate rules, and he's also said that the senate was going to conduct a trial much in line with the clinton impeachment trial the last time around. and that consistency ended up

being very persuasive with his republican colleague, even the moderates -- folks like mitt romney or susan collins -- who gave him the votes to say, yes, let's start. in the face of that, even democrats understand that they could not win this battle, and they have conceded. paul: yeah. of chuck schumer and nancy pelosi seem to be in league here, with chuck schumer demanding witnesses and pelosi backing him up. some democrats in the senate were finally losing patience, dianne feinstein, joe manchin, some others, said let's get on with it. they had even lost support among democrats. >> well, it was becoming clear just how incredibly cynical this move was after house democrats spent months, this is urgent, it must get done, and then to just sit there on them. and i think those democrats were getting some blowback in their districts and increasing worries that this was looking highly political and it could blow back against the party. paul: and i would say there's probably one very happy democrat in the house, bill, and that's adam schiff. as the chief impeacher, he's now

going to get his star turn. this is going to be the capstone of his career, making the case to impeach donald trump. >> right. and the question is what kind of case they're going to make. again, i think -- paul: i think it will be grand eloquent. >> well, the question is on the witnesses. they defer that decision for a while. so mcconnell has two things op his side. right now he has the constitution that leapts the senate set the rules and the votes. and as long as he has those two, he can do whatever he wants. i'm not really sure the democrats really want witnesses because what if they subpoena joe biden or hunter biden? i'm not sure they really want it. and igy, again, one of the priorities of the senate is to show the disdain for this goldberg way that nancy pelosi handled impeachment, the unfairness of her process and so forth. and now it's out of her hands. >> you know what's incredible about this is the extent to which we've been talking about nancy pelosi, impeachment, trial in the senate, is so forth. donald trump has become basically a bystander.

he's fallen out of the news. as we know, it's nominally about him, but he's standing over there watching the senate and the house fight with one another -- paul: well, but actually this is very shrewd. he's been asked about it every single press event. what do you think about witnesses, mr. president? that's up to the senate. that's smart. let mcconnell handle it. >> and i think it was very telling that dianne feinstein as well as senator dick blumenthal of connecticut, very liberal, he also said they had to get on with it. they have concluded the democrats are getting nothing out of this process, paul. there is no political -- sure, it's political, but where's the political benefit? they haven't moved the needle, and it's beginning to hurt them. paul: kim, what kind of trial do you think we're going to see? is it going to be limited, do you think, to arguments from the house impeachment managers for ouster, conviction, and then the president's lawyers defending it without witnesses, or are we likely to see some witnesses called? >> well, mcconnell has made

clear that what you just outlined is, indeed, what the trial will initially consist of, house impeachment managers and importantly, because we've never heard this yet, a defense from the president's team. that's going to be new and important because they were denied that in the house. in terms of further witnesses, i think, look, republicans have made the very powerful argument that democrats said that they had enough already to impeach donald trump. so it's their job to look at what the house presents, why is it the senate's job to go and try and find yet further information, make a judgment on what the house's work product already? so that'll be the argument probably mcconnell makes. we'll see if his moderates stick with that or feel pressure to go further. paul: and is there going to be, if john bolton is called, is there going to be any deep, dark secret that he is relaying to the country? >> i don't know. i mean, he might say some things that are embarrassing for some of the other members of the

trump team, but i don't think he's going to have -- if democrats are hoping for some magic bullet to say donald trump is guilty, i don't think he's going to have it. and, again, as i said before, i think if you go the bolton route and you sweep that him, then i think they're going to go the joe biden route and subpoena joe biden. paul: i don't know that they'll -- the republicans i talk to don't want to go with joe biden. they may go with hunter, and that in the end -- >> but you open the door to all sorts of other possibilities in a chamber that the democrats do not control. paul: one thing that john bolton will say, he didn't like what rudy giuliani was doing in ukraine. what do you think? [laughter] >> he may say, look, he didn't like the ukraine policy, withholding the aid, but john bolton was in government every day of his life engaged in this. he's a really good bureaucratic. >>-fighter, and i think he'd tell them, this was no different, i just disagreed with it, and i left. end of story. paul: all right, thank you. when we come back, in the wake of the iran showdown, a closer

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♪ ♪ >> our economy is stronger than ever before, is and america's achieved energy independence. we are now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. we are independent, and we do not need middle east oil. paul: president trump touting the strength of the u.s. economy wednesday in the wake of iran's attack on u.s. bases in iraq. oil prices have remained remarkably steady since the soleimani strike, a far cry from previous periods of tension in the middle east. we're back with dan, kim and bill. bill, you know, really striking,

oil prices did pop up but not that much. and, you know, $5-6 a gallon for a while and, of course, they're back down on the easing of tensions. but a lot of this has to do with the american oil revolution. >> right. look, we both remember the days of opecing and so forth. the real problem with oil before was that a lot of it was in the hands of bad actors, right? bad countries that are not necessarily amenable to us. one reason saudi arabia was so important for us. all these alternative forms of energy have just done wonders for the market, and it's a national security factor. the president, doing this has to calculate the impact, and this is almost no impact. paul: look, it's amazing, when you think about it, dan. venezuela, through sanctions, its oil exports have been really vastly reduced. you have the iranian exports through sanctions vastly reduced. there's still a glut of oil on the global markets, and so you take out two really bad actors,

it just increases the president flexibility strategically -- the president's flexibility strategically to be able to take action against rogue actors. >> yeah, that's right. and we have to include the fracking revolution in here -- paul: central to it. >> central to it. most of which the independence the president's talking about has happened since his election. so that raises the question up what exactly has been democratic policy towards energy. and again, this is sort of like foreign policy, paul. the basic position is that fossil fuels, all forms of energy excavation, exploration are off the table. and so barack obama's presidency did a lot to suppress energy exploration -- paul: well, but they -- >> they said wind, solar, the rest of it, give me a break. that isn't going to produce energy in the short term. paul: but they would say, no, look, it happened on my watch. we didn't stop it. kim? >> they tried to stop it.

>> no, no, no, no. what dan's describing is barack obama had a managed plan for energy development, all of which proved to be a debacle, wind, solar, exceptional amounts of money spent on things like solyndra. what happened under his watch was that the private economy, private industry came up with a revolutionary new technique called fracking and horizontal drilling which revolutionized the oil market. so this happened despite barack obama. now, he didn't get in the way as much as he might have, but what you've seen is donald trump really expand on this, really unleash it. and that is what has made this important difference in most recent years. paul: kim, tell the audience what happened in 2015 when, to lift what had been an export ban on oil. that was lifted, and now we really have a boom in exports. what happened? >> yeah. so this was an example of government action making a good decision. so in light of this huge change

in the oil industry, we had all this oil surging in the united states. we lifted a 40-year-old export ban. there were people that worried and said, oh, you know, this is going to be less for america, higher prices. in fact, that's not how economics works. you put it out on the market, it keeps the market stable, it ultimately lowers prices overall. it's been a great boon for u.s. producers and the u.s. economy, but the world too because of greater stability and more flexibility, as you mentioned, for western leaders to take actions against rogue actors. paul: and that was insisted upon by house republicans when they took the house. paul ryan, i remember the negotiations. the trade was we'll lift the export ban, the republicans, mr. president, we'll lift the export ban, put it into law, if -- and we'll give you your subsidy extension for some of the solar and wind -- >> right. look, the democrats -- we're live anything a state where andrew cuomo opposed fracking. paul: still does. >> still does. and, you know, one of the

reasons the out of city population has said, well, look, the second part of this you said it was flexible? it's also depriving our enemies of revenues, right? venezuela, russia, iran. paul: we have to take one more break. when we come back, hits and misses of the week. ♪ ♪

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time now for our hits and misses of the week. i huge hit to the american cancer society announcement cancer mortality rates have plunged about 30%. part of this is better habits, less smoking. better screening and earlier a lot of it because of breakthrough therapies all of this is because of a free and innovative market normally i

am for government workers getting off the state payroll. a big miss as prince harry and his wife megan are looking for a more progressive role they've also trademarked the brand sussex royal. even for this irish american i am equate with the queen on this one. >> god save andrew cuomo of new york. he promised to legalize marijuana. they have a 6 billion-dollar budget deficit. he also said he wants studies to see he would like to avoid another opioid crisis isn't as he is legalizing in the step. it is incredible.

that's it for this week's show. thank you for watching. we hope to see right here next week. admitting it shot down ukrainian jetliner by mistake. and now raising lots of questions for the regime. hello everyone and welcome to america's news headquarters. thank you for joining us. eric: after claiming claimant it was a mechanical program i did accidentally shoot that boeing 737 out of the night sky. it happened just hours after the islamic repub